Have you ever been to the movies expecting one thing and came out with a whole new perspective? That’s what happened to me when I watched “Downsizing,” presented by Paramount Pictures and starring Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau, Kristen Wiig, Udo Kier, Jason Sudeikis, Laura Dern, Neil Patrick Harris and Rolf Lassgård.
The trailer glosses over the real purpose of the movie, a call of action to how we are treating the world and the devastating consequences we could suffer if we continue down the path of destruction we’re in. I personally thought the film was going to be more of a comedy that would show an exaggerated idea of what it would be like to live as a smaller version of yourself with a lot of physical comedy and ridiculous characters. But when the movie began, it was far from what I had thought.
In the film’s reality, Norwegian scientists develop a way to shrink humans to five inches tall and propose a 200-year global transition from big to small to solve one of the world's biggest problems - overpopulation.
People soon realize how much further money goes in a miniaturized world. With the promise of a better life, everyman Paul Safranek (Matt Damon) and wife Audrey (Kristen Wiig) decide to abandon their stressed lives in Omaha for a new downsized community, taking the irreversible leap that will trigger life-changing adventures when they become small.
A decade had passed since he watched Norwegian Scientist Dr. Jorgen Asbjørnsen (Rolf Lassgård) and his team wow the world with a solution to its biggest problem – overpopulation. The solve? Cellular miniaturization, better known as downsizing. The goal? Convince six percent of the world’s population to voluntarily shrink themselves to 5-inches in 200 years and minimize the possibility of human extinction.
Living small had a big purpose. But the noble quest to save the human race needed a little fine-tuning.
A year after downsizing, taking the leap had not paid off. Paul was divorced and alone, working as a sales rep and living in an apartment as fate intervened. After meeting his Serbian playboy neighbor Dusan Mirkovic (Christoph Waltz) and his business partner Konrad (Udo Kier), along with Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau), Dusan’s housekeeper, Paul experiences another downside of the downsized world – the massive tenement where impoverished immigrants live on the other side of a vast, imposing wall.
Eventually, Paul would come to understand a love he could have never imagined, a perspective he would have never realized and a chance at greatness he never saw coming.
The movie makes you think, and makes you wonder about your own personal impact in our environment. For a moment, you’re so involved in the story that you actually begin to wonder if Downsizing would actually be a good idea. That’s what’s so great about the movie. A never-before-heard (or seen) concept that became reality in the film’s universe, presented brilliantly with all the ups and downs of it, makes you question if that would be a feasible option in today’s climate.
Downsizing is a bittersweet sci-fi adventure that will make you open your eyes to the world’s situation while diving in a fictional (but very real) universe of what seem to be crazy ideas that might not be too crazy after all. It will make you realize the world is so much bigger than what you thought and is full of new and wonderful things to see. You can watch it in theaters now.
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